Set-hut! Hike!
"Schools in Mass. report nearly 3,000 concussions; A partial but worrisome look at head injury crisis" by Lisa Kocian |
Globe Staff, October 28, 2012
Nearly 3,000 Massachusetts students suffered a concussion or other
head injury while playing sports during the last school year, according
to the results of a first-of-its-kind survey completed by 164 schools.
The reports from middle and high schools across Massachusetts, collected under a state law passed
in 2010, highlight the extent of the problem at a time when medical
experts and sports leagues, from Pop Warner to the NFL, are increasingly
worried about the long-term effects of head injuries....
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Related: Rival rips coach of injured Pop Warner players
Student athletes return too soon after concussions
Concussions bring more scrutiny in youth football
New Boston law targets head injuries
DPH head shares insights after concussion findings
Evidence of brain damage from head injuries mounts
Two kids died? Time to ban football. Nothing more than a loaded gun aimed at a kid's head.
Maybe a different game would do?
Ringing the bell about NFL concussions
Saying Goodbye to Seau
Researchers: Junior Seau had brain disease
Seau and RGIII: Warning bells for NFL coaches
Football concussions: The problem lies at the heart of the sport
You are treading on dangerous ground there. Complain about the lying, the looting, the wars, and the encroaching veil of American tyranny and you get a glazed-over look from the AmeriKan people. Then mention a ban on football or beer and watch the outrage flow.
"Fantasy football gaining in popularity with kids; Bragging rights are main draw" by Beth Teitell |
Globe Staff, October 23, 2012
Young brothers Nick and Theo Kennedy love watching football on
Sundays, but the afternoons are anything but relaxing. When the Patriots
are on, the TV in their Westwood living room is tuned to that game, but
they regularly flip to the NFL’s RedZone, a live highlights channel,
and each boy constantly checks his tablet, monitoring ESPN for updates
on more than 50 players leaguewide.
“They look like bookies,” said their mother, Kimberly Kennedy.
No money is at stake. But like a growing number of children, Nick,
13, and Theo, 11, are playing for something more important: fantasy
football bragging rights. “We like to razz each other at school,” Theo
said.
About 25 million people, ages 12 and over, play in fantasy football
leagues around the United States, according to Paul Charchian, president
of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association....
Fantasy football has gone so mainstream, Charchian said, that playing
has become a way of keeping up with friends. “Dropping a league is like
ending a dozen friendships.”
For those who aren’t on a fantasy football team, here’s
how it works: Players join or create a league, and then get to act like
owners of actual teams, “drafting” real NFL players and making game-day
decisions. Points are earned on the basis of how the players perform in
their real-life games that day.
The demand from the youth market is so strong that in 2007 the NFL
added a kid-focused fantasy game on its popular NFLRush site, and this
year launched mobile apps, the better to check on how your players are
doing from the sidelines of travel soccer, or, like Christian Abbate, a
Hanover 15-year-old, while you’re out to dinner with your grandfather.
“I said ‘Put the phone down,’ ” recalled his mother, Lisa Zajonc, the
manager of a Disney store in Braintree. “He’s always checking
something.”
But with fantasy football a constant source of youth conversation, a
kid needs to do what a kid needs to do....
Here’s another sign that fantasy football has taken hold of the
kiddie set: It has become a source of friction between kids and parents....
Nice.
Yahoo! Sports fantasy expert Brad Evans calls fantasy football the
“sports cards of the 21st century.” Considering that cards were just
cards, and that fantasy football has invaded so many aspects of modern
life, from smartphones to sitcoms, it’s like cards on steroids.
Although parents rightfully worry about all sorts of online
distractions, many take solace in fantasy’s potential to teach math and
strategic skills.
In the mid-1990s, Dan Flockhart, a middle-school math teacher in
Northern California, increased his students’ motivation by combining
math and fantasy football.....
And there’s another plus, he added.
“I have had fathers tell me that fantasy sports has given them
quality time with their adolescent sons and daughters, who previously
wanted nothing to do with them.”
Isn't that a sad statement on the state of AmeriKa?
The National Football League also plays up the educational component
of fantasy football....
(Blog editor shakes head and rolls eyes toward the ceiling; I suppose any educational motivator is a good thing these days)
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Also see: A team that has faced a near-Biblical series of trials
I'll be back with some more Sunday Globe Specials later, dear readers.
Enjoy the game.
UPDATE: Saints’ coaches and administrators to blame for ‘bounty’ scandal
